The Republican Party in Georgia is in flames
It is a rainy night in Georgia, at least for Republicans diligently trying to suppress the vote before the January 5 runoff. The RNC and the Georgia Republican Party filed suit against Attorney General Brad Raffensperger (and others) to remove drop boxes and/or require that they be used only during business hours. They also brought up the ridiculous poll watcher claims again, attaching various affidavits from so-called poll watchers who claim they were not allowed to watch from close proximity. One even claimed to have been sent into a closet. No kidding, people.
That suit is currently pending, though the Democratic Party of Georgia and DSCC have moved to intervene as party defendants. Three non-profits filed an Amicus Brief, showing the Court that this is nothing more than Republicans’ attempt to suppress the vote when, according to Stacey Abrams, over 1,000,000 have already voted. This is a case of closing the barn door after the horse got out (and it is stupid).
On November 13, Attorney Lin Wood filed suit in Atlanta’s federal court, attempting to nullify the 2019 agreement allowing mail-in ballots that has been in force for three national elections. Since that did not pan out, Wood claimed that “irregularities” occurred in the hand recount for the 2020 election, “violating his rights to due process.” He also claimed that observers were not allowed to fully observe the process and presented his own set of ludicrous “affidavits” (it seems almost criminal to call them affidavits). As a “cure,” Wood wanted the District Court to stop certification of the vote in Georgia, among other things. Wood’s “star witness,” a poll worker, claimed that some of the absentee ballots “didn’t feel right.” The Court summarily denied Wood’s frivolous lawsuit, and he hoofed over to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the ruling of the District Court. In other words, they told Wood to get lost.
Another suit filed in Georgia by the Twelfth Congressional District Republican Committee was dismissed so fast that we hardly even saw it. This case was filed on December 9 and was heard and dismissed on December 17 by the chief judge of the Southern District of Georgia, Bush appointee J. Randal Hall, who ruled that “[F]raud concerns at this stage are all highly speculative.” Everything about these suppression attempts is “highly speculative.” The fact is that without cheating, Republicans will never win.
Personally, I do not think they care as much about Trump as they care about the authoritarian rule they would like to have that he set in motion. They would be better served by remembering that they live in a free country, and instead of trying to suppress votes, they should try doing something for us for a change. Mitch McConnell is pretending to do something by working on a stimulus, but that is merely for show; he desperately wants Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue back in the Senate. Georgia — and the entire country, for that matter — is hoping that Mitch does not get his Christmas wish.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years